There are many distinct types of sales approaches used by insurance professionals. Some work better than others. Indeed published a list in 2023 about 13 types of sales approaches to try. Some consider “solution selling” highly effective (it’s one of the 13 in Indeed’s article). That’s certainly a great place to start. Here are three additional tips to developing a customer-centric sales approach.
1: Change your mindset: have a conversation instead of just presenting your portfolio. Develop a comprehensive understanding of your clients’ profiles.
It is important to ask the right questions. Get to know your clients to uncover their unique situation, pain points, risks, preferences, and challenges. That way, you can work to find the right solution to addresses their issue(s).
You can employ a variety of methods to help you uncover the information you need. That includes interviews, surveys, and other mechanisms to gain insights into their lives, businesses, and goals.
If your client has a health plan in place for employees, ask about what is working (and what they and their employees like). Ask about any shortcoming or service issues they might be having. Are there issues with the provider network? Ask your clients, in an ideal world, what would they like to achieve by changing health plans? (Cost should not be the only consideration. Sometimes getting more offsets paying more.)
An article published by the Harvard Business Review discusses seven personality traits of top salespeople. Not surprisingly, the most successful sales professionals often have these characteristics:
- Modesty and humility (Ostentatious salespeople alienate more customers than they win.)
- Conscientiousness (Strong sense of duty and being responsible and reliable.)
- Achievement orientation (Fixated on achieving goals; continuously measure performance in comparison to goals.)
- Curiosity (Top salespeople are naturally more curious than lesser-performing individuals.)
- Lack of gregariousness (Top performers averaged 30% lower than below-average performers.)
- Lack of discouragement (90% of top performers experienced infrequent or only occasional sadness.)
- Lack of self-consciousness (Self-consciousness measures how easily someone is embarrassed. Less than 5% of top performers had high levels of self-consciousness.)
2: Focus on quality, not quantity.
Customer-centric selling is all about doing the best-possible job for your customers. If you build a positive relationship with your clients, helping them find solutions to address their specific individual and group needs, you are likely to get increased business and referrals from them in the future.
As part of your emphasis on being the best, don’t push your customers to close on your schedule. Let them drive the schedule, based on their needs. Hopefully, you will be able to find a schedule that works for both of you.
3: Foster a culture of continuous service and nurture an excellent experience for customers.
While making the sale is important, your post-sale interactions with your clients is equally important. By prioritizing customer service, before and after the sale, you can develop a relationship with clients that will reward you time after time and year after year.
Customer service is king. Customers expect and deserve prompt responses to questions about claims, provider networks, adding employees, making coverage changes, etc. Providing that service shows them you value their business and appreciate them having selected you as their employee benefits professional.
For other tips, including a comparison of seller-centric vs. prospect-centric selling, read the online post, 5 Best Tips to Solidify Your Customer-Centric Selling Strategy. For information on how Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools can help you nurture your relationships with prospects and clients, read our prior blog, The Benefits of Implementing a Robust CRM System.
Talk with your Word & Brown representative about how we can help you increase your sales and enhance your customer service. We have resources to help you quote more, write more, renew more, and earn more.
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